When Everything's Made to Be Broken
by AmbyrRose
Summary: She might not have looked like the type, but Jade West believed in angels / Beck Oliver didn't know if he believed in angels, but he sure as hell believed in demons. Bade, T for language and self-harm


**AN: Something I've been working on for a while, inspired by - oddly enough - "Iris", by the Goo-Goo Dolls. It's hard to describe, just a little Bade. Enjoy!**

...

**And I don't want the world to see me**  
><strong>'Cause I don't think that they'd understand<strong>  
><strong>When everything's made to be broken<strong>  
><strong>I just want you to know who I am<strong>  
>~Goo-Goo Dolls, "Iris"<p>

...

She might not have looked like the type, but Jade West believed in angels.

Not the fluffy white-winged young girls on Halloween; not the chubby babies frolicking in clouds on calendars. Some had wings, some didn't, some were beautiful, some invisible. She knew they were there, though. That was about all she knew, these days.

Her daddy had been an angel, a living, breathing one. An angel of song, who played and sang and taught others that music could help you sprout wings and fly away. One of her first memories was sparkly pink Keds dangling from the piano bench, glitter-painted fingers clumsily plunking out a tune while he smiled. It was he who had given her the first of her collection: the Willow Tree Angel of Patience, a joke after she punched a boy in line who was taking so long.

_You've always been an angel, Jaydee,_ he'd said, ruffling her hair gently as she opened her precious little box. _But if you want anybody else to know that, you're gonna have to work a little harder._

She'd tried. She'd tried so hard. She'd sung her heart out, poured herself into music, spread her wings, smiled, laughed. She'd given up on Mama ever noticing a long time ago. But Daddy loved her, and that was enough to make her feel like she could fly.

All that changed when he died.

She hated that tombstone. She hated it with all the fire and brimstone her twelve-year-old heart could muster. It was a hard, lifeless block of granite, flashing with false warmth in the sun but always icy cold when she touched it with black-painted fingers. Even the words engraved in the front were nothing. A name and a date. Her entire father – Daddy – reduced to a name and a date. He deserved more than that. He deserved an angel's funeral.

Two days after the burial, vandals struck. The police investigated, but they never found much. Gang activity was suspected, but that didn't explain why Jasper West alone had been singled out, or what the wings carved over his name meant.

Her mother remarried in two months. The day of the wedding, the bride's daughter was nowhere to be seen. If anybody had bothered to check, they would have found her kneeling in the soft grass covering Daddy like a blanket. Screaming.

After that, if anything remained of the blissful little angel, it was barbed-wire wings and the halo of the damned.

Except at night, in those quiet hours where nobody was awake but her. At night, she had her angels, her carved-willow guardians. Wonder, Serenity, Grace, Hope, Miracles and more, scattered across her shelves and desk and windowsill. Each night, she touched each curved wing, each precious keepsake the angels held. Wonder's golden globe, Serenity's folded arms, Grace's open palms, Hope's rusty lantern, Miracle's hatching baby bird – her fingers traced each of them, drawing comfort from the smooth, cool resin.

But there was one that held a special place in her heart, one she left on her bedside table and brushed her fingers across over and over again as she was drifting off to sleep. She held nothing in her hands, but stretched her fists upward, her head tipped back as if she was shouting to the sky.

Courage. The last angel Daddy had ever given her.

And then she turned out the light and buried her head in her pillow to block out anything from the outside world, just in case.

Basic yin and yang: if angels existed, so did demons.

X

Beck Oliver didn't know if he believed in angels, but he sure as hell believed in demons.

They followed him everywhere, hounding him day and night until some days he felt like little more than a glance over the shoulder, an invisible eye, his whole identity in a word: hunted. There were times when he could almost escape – when he was immersed in being someone else, when everyone was watching him be someone else, when the applause he gathered from being someone else nearly brought the house down. Not many people realized it, but demons had stage fright. But then he was himself again and he was dragging his feet all the way home to where the demons were invariably waiting. With Daddy dearest, of course. Their king.

Heaven was always on the next page of the script. So what happened when the script ended?

He finally found their kryptonite, one night when he could stand it no longer. Steel. At first it was just a pair of blunt scissors, but he managed to swipe a razor blade from his dad's workbench and that, dear God, was all he needed. He hated himself for doing it, really, but he just couldn't stop. Each red stripe was like a shield, the pain offering up an eye in the storm, a barrier of clarity and calm that held a fragile moment of peace.

And then that moment shattered and it hurt like hell and the demons were still there. But he didn't really have anything better.

His parents never noticed the scars. They never noticed him. The last time they'd had conversation besides "How was your day?" and "Fine" was when he'd threatened to move out. Dad had bought his uncle's RV and left him to his own life. He was a salesman – which meant everything was for sale. Beck could barely afford two minutes of his time, and besides he wasn't really sure he wanted to.

His mom was worse. It wasn't that she didn't care. It was that every time she looked at him, every time she forced a thin smile and asked how his day was and nodded absently at his answer, he saw in her eyes that same question every day: _what happened to my little boy?_

She wanted that bright-eyed, laughing little boy who had thirsted for life and loved every second of it. And she blamed this surly, silent, dull-hearted teenager for taking him away. So he respected her wish and backed off. Maybe if that little kid ever came back, he could join her. Beck? He was long gone.

Basic math. Pain - people = less problems.

Except maybe her.

He'd been assigned to her as a drive-by acting exercise – two lovers on the eve of their separation. It should have been horribly awkward. She was certainly glaring at him like she was going to kill him. But then Sikowitz called scene, and something melted in her face, and suddenly she was his, totally his, for the night, anyway, and he was feeding off her emotion and she was feeding off his until they were totally engrossed in their own world. There, in front of a class of ten in second period on a Monday morning, he gave the performance of his life.

When Sikowitz stopped them, it took him a moment to come back to himself.

He'd seen her walk by his locker, later, glaring at nothing at all. A boy nearby, rejected and sore, had called her a demon. No. Beck knew demons. They might be beautiful, but demons weren't so damn perfect.

An angel of darkness? Maybe. But at that point, an angel was all he needed.

X

Gorgeous. Persistent. Intriguing. Impossible. Obviously in pain. Not fooling anybody with those long sleeves. Sweet. Slightly hovering. Annoying as hell. Never gonna stop bugging her, anyway.

Eh, why not?

X

"You look beautiful," he offered up quietly, daring to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She stilled.

"If you get sappy, I'm walking out."

He laughed and offered his arm. Even if she was determined not to have a good time, she looked like heaven. And she at least said yes. Eighth time's a charm.

She shifted her weight, uncomfortable. Why was he staring at her? She'd thought she looked at least presentable. Did she have something in her teeth? Impossible. She hadn't eaten dinner. She'd been too nervous.

He gestured toward the thudding stereo of the dance floor. "Do you dance?"

She managed a smile. "If you can keep up."

His small smirk bloomed into an answering grin, and he pulled her by the hand into the sea of bodies. Their dancing fit as easily as their acting; hesitant at first, they grew more and more confident in steps and movement until they were swirling around each other like planets around a sun, not quite touching, but close enough. She laughed. Jade West laughed. She _laughed!_

The song stopped far too soon.

Another song began, slower and sweeter. Couples swayed closer, and he dared to defy the demons that were so far away now and touch her waist softly with one hand. She looked up sharply, and then, as if with a wild animal, she warily lay a hand on his shoulder. He lifted his other hand, and she twined her fingers behind his neck, and they began to sway.

Something odd was happening inside her, something without words. The best she could describe it was . . . melting. "I could get used to this," she offered up softly; an invitation, a hope.

"Me too." He dared to hold her a little closer. "It feels . . . amazing."

"It feels like freedom."

That was it, he realized. That was exactly it. He felt the same way whenever she was around: absolutely free.

And then he panicked, because really, who was he to keep an angel earthbound? "You don't want this," he whispered into her hair. "You don't know me. I'm like . . . a demon."

"Don't be stupid," Jade said bluntly. "I don't waste my time with demons."

And it was there, in that flat, no-nonsense declaration, that Beck Oliver found hope again.

X

She knew she wasn't perfect, but even angels had their limits.

Her mother told her to call him "Dad". That was when the fight started.

There was an RV in the driveway, its light on even at this hour, and somehow she knew it was him. She stumbled up the driveway unfeelingly, her numb feet dragging. Stupidly, she tried the door first. Locked. She knocked once, twice, and then she was pounding on the door, her knuckles rapping out a frantic staccato rhythm until he finally opened it.

"Okay, jeez, all you gotta do is knock –" He fell silent when he saw her. "What's wrong?" He looked around behind her, comprehension dawning. "Did you _walk_ here?"

When Jade was little, she used to twist at the fingers of her other hand when she was nervous. She hadn't done it in years. A sharp pain in her left hand told her she was doing it again. For a moment, there were no words. Then she took a deep breath.

"I can't go home," she said simply, and for the first time a trace of her frozen-over panic seeped into her voice. "I can't – I'm not – I just can't. And – and I don't know where else to go."

He looked at her for a moment, and then placed a hand on her back and led her inside without a word.

She took the bed. He sat on the sofa and watched her breathe until red dawn light broke through tinted windows.

X

"I have something for you," he said.

She stiffened. "I said no birthdays."

"And I said I didn't care." He pulled a small box from his bag, wrapped in plain brown paper, the only adornment a piece of tape holding it together. Jade took it, examining the sharp angles, the clean folds, and triangle-taped sides that screamed professional wrapping. She made a show of carelessly tearing the paper aside, but hissed in her breath when she saw the logo.

The angel was simple, light-haired, but there was something about it; wings stretched out extra far and head tossed back. Its hands were outstretched, offering up a single, bright red butterfly. Jade checked the card.

_For Those with a Boundless Spirit of Independence, the Angel of Freedom._

For the first time in living memory, Jade West didn't know what to say. "I . . . but . . . how did you . . . ?"

"One more," he said, smiling and nodding at the box. She drew it out with fumbling fingers. The dark-haired angel was tilting its head down, as if guarding a secret, intertwined hands clutching a single, thorny rose of dusky pink.

"Which angel is this?" she asked cautiously.

"Love," he said, and folded her into his arms.

X

Yeah, she was still in his house. Yeah, her mother still wanted her to call him "dad". But she could smile to his face now; she could sing behind closed doors. She was reaching for the light. And there was nothing he could do to stop her.

X

The kiss, when it came, was a rose in the thorn bush, an oasis in the desert, a brilliant star on a moonless night. It was hesitant, fragile, and more damn beautiful than words could ever say. An instant of surety after years and years of chaos.

And so Beck Oliver believed in heaven.

X

Somewhere along the way, he stopped locking his door. She stopped knocking.

X

"There," he said, running a finger over her forearm, where her lifeblood sang. She smiled tightly, eyes dancing in anticipation. Dear God, he was glad she'd talked him into this. "Now you do me."

She only paused a moment. "There," she said, running a finger over his shoulder blade, where an angel's wing would have grown.

They chose their sign, and he went first. Just to tell her if it hurt. "To freedom," she said, allowing herself the smallest of smiles.

His grin was loose, bordering on intoxication, breathing deeply, sweetly. "Freedom."

The artist eyed them warily. "What are you, patriots?"

"No," Jade said, watching as the blue-inked needle traced a star on Beck's back. "Just survivors."

X

Somewhere along the way, they made friends. Although that might not be accurate; it was more like the happy-to-the-point-of-slightly-psychotic redhead made friends, and they were lucky enough that those friends happened to be them. In truth, they had done very little; they were still trying to recover from the barrage of questions, comments, giggles and squeals when Hollywood Arts' musical prodigy walked up. "'Sup, Lil Red?"

"Look, André," she said brightly, nodding at the totally bemused couple. "I made friends."

Friends?

Friends.

Of course, hanging with a group had its risks as well – for all her progress Beck thought Jade was going to lunge over the table when the awkward kid's puppet first hit on her. But she grit her teeth, he got more tactful or at least faster at ducking, and the puppet learned to keep at least a little quieter around her. Although Jade made it clear she found ventriloquism perfectly obnoxious and that if he ever took it up she'd shoot herself and then him, Beck almost admired the guy. At least he had a voice of his own. Two voices.

Whenever he tried to explain that to Jade, she told him two voices, for that kid, was two too many.

But even as she snarled and snapped like a bad-tempered bear, she never got up. She never walked away. Because even though she hated to admit it, she kind of liked this motley crew. Especially Cat. Something about her bright-eyed innocence and insistence that everybody loved puppies and brownies and love made Jade feel like maybe there was hope for her yet.

She found herself smiling as Cat babbled on, then shot a quick glance at Beck to make sure he didn't think she was enjoying one minute of it.

He smiled and squeezed her hand.

X

It was almost midnight when she broke his unspoken rule.

He didn't even realize what she was doing at first; they were watching _The Princess Bride_, one of his favorites, and when she'd reached for his hand he'd closed his eyes. But before he could do anything, she'd yanked up his sleeve and flipped his hand, exposing years and years of thin white scars and deep red lines. Beck froze. Jade hissed in her breath.

"Oh, babe," she breathed.

He braced himself for the storm, but she didn't move for a long, long time. Slowly, she got up, walking away, toward the small bathroom in the back. He waited for the sound of something breaking, or – God forbid – soft sobs. But when she came back, she was holding a small roll of something and a bottle. He'd forgotten his mom had restocked the cabinet last week. They hadn't spoken.

"Let me see," Jade ordered softly. Slightly afraid of her seeming calm, he extended his arm, gut pulsing with fiery shame. She spun open the bottle, and the sharp fumes of rubbing alcohol filled the air. She covered the top with the paper towels and shook briskly, then set the bottle on the carpet. Taking his palm in a black-nailed hand, she gently ran the paper towel along his forearm. Cool relief quickly melted into sharp stings, and he jumped slightly.

"Shh," she murmured, her grip tightening to keep his arm from moving. He relaxed marginally, still on edge as she painted his arm with the burning liquid. Even in the half-light from the TV, she missed nothing; from the oldest of scars to the freshest of cuts. Shame and relief warred inside him until he felt almost physically sick.

She didn't look up as she sent the paper towels flying across the room into the waste basket. Instead she deftly unspooled a long strip of gauze, pressed it into a patch of untouched skin, and began to wind around and around. The burning was fading; gentle coolness took its place.

"There," she said finally, apparently satisfied the knot would hold. She managed a quiet snort, still not meeting his eyes. "That was one pissed off dog, huh?"

He choked out a laugh, waiting for the request that would follow. But she surprised him, a habit that was quickly becoming an art; she snuggled down into the folds of the couch beside him, her eyes glued on Buttercup declaring her undying love for Wesley.

He couldn't resist. "Aren't you going to ask me to stop?"

She didn't reply for a moment. "If you promised, would you keep it?"

Now he was glad she was looking at the TV, because he couldn't have met her eyes if he tried.

"Yeah," she said, more resigned than anything else. "That's what I thought. Just . . . just promise me you won't – won't go to far?"

Good God, and leave her alone? "Promise."

She sighed, and turned her face into his shoulder. Just before she drifted off to sleep, he heard her mutter something. It sounded a lot like _Always picking up the pieces_.

X

"I have something for you,"

"You said no birthdays."

"And you said you didn't care." She handed over a brown-bundled package, barely held together with string, with his name spiked across the top. He tore it off gently; Jade didn't do things by hand. Not usually.

The angel was soft, tender, its blonde head bowed. In its folded hands was a tiny bird, nestled protectively against her chest. "Which angel is this?" he asked cautiously.

"Healing," she said, and twined her arms around his neck.

X

At first, he blamed her. If she just wasn't so freaking _stubborn_ . . .

By the time she was driving away, he was already blaming himself.

His father had snorted from over the _Wall Street Journal_ when he stumbled back through the living room, numb with shock. "Is the she-devil gone, then?"

Beck Oliver punched his father. He left for his RV before his mom could start screaming.

He didn't need her. She thought she was way more important than she was. He'd always managed on his own. He would survive. Who gave a damn about Jade West?

He'd almost forgotten just what hell felt like.

He fell to his knees, and the demons were everywhere, scratching, kicking, biting at him until there was almost nothing left. He'd lost his angel, the only speck of light he'd had since the demons had started chasing him and he couldn't manage without her, reaching for the steel to slide red again and again and –

No. NO.

He was sick of this. He was sick of the shame, the constant sense of failure, of the stupid scars acting like ropes, snagging and snaring his every reach for a real life.

He picked up the razor. And he flushed it down the toilet.

He gave it three days. Smokers said that if you could make it three days without a cigarette, you could make it for life. Three days to make sure he was never going back, and that Jade had cooled off too, and that this actually had a shot at working. He cut school for the last day, and spent at home, sitting cross-legged on top of his RV, motionless, thinking. The demons were still there, somewhere. But it wasn't like the blade; the blade forced them away. Right now, after a few deep breaths and a moment of peace, it seemed more like they'd wandered off of their own accord.

They might come back, but he would be ready, now he knew damn well he was stronger than steel.

He found her on the fourth sunrise, asleep next to her daddy. Grass in her hair and mascara trails along her cheeks said she'd been there all night. He tucked her hair behind her ear, spread his jacket over her, curled up beside her and closed his eyes.

X

The more blissful the calm, Jade discovered, the more turbulent the storm that followed. Even angels had their bad days, and the demons were a hell of a lot stronger than either of them had imagined. But that was all right; they didn't have to beat them, just keep them at bay long enough to remember the light.

It isn't always easy.

She cries for her father.

He cries for his razor.

They scream and shout until the roof nearly tumbles down, and one of them usually ends up in tears, even though they try so damn hard to keep it in. Because the pain is still pretty raw, even though neither of them wants to admit it. But that's okay. That's okay. Back and forth, strong to weak, depending on the night, same words to a different tune:

_Hush, baby, I'm here_.

_I'm not going anywhere._

_I won't leave, I swear._

_I'll be here all night, if you want._

They'd found their guardian angels.

And they would be okay.


End file.
